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Some 'Next-Gen' DVDs May Not Work With Vista
schnikies79 wrote to mention an article on the Times Online site, where they report that a 'substantial number' of Vista PCs will be unable to play HD-DVDs or Blu-ray discs, as a result of DRM requirements made by the operating system. From the article: "Dave Marsh, the lead program manager for video at Microsoft, said that if the PC used a digital connection to link with the monitor or television, then it would require the highest level of content protection, known as HDCP, to play the discs. If it did not have such protection, Vista would shut down the signal, he said."
Ready!
Fire!
Aim!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
DVD Jon to the white courtesy phone, please.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
For anyone who's been following the recent debates about Vista, this is already old news. But now the mainstream seems to be picking up on it.
What the article doesn't mention is that, probably precisely for this reason, there seems to be an agreement between Sony and Microsoft that HDCP protection won't actually be required by Blu-Ray discs until at least 2010, maybe even 2012. Remember, it's the disc that actually needs to require it, the operating system only provides this as an option.
That doesn't make the system anymore pleasing though. I wonder how far Microsoft will actually get with it. Customers do seem to get upset with this, and it wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has had to make "concessions" because of public criticism.
Peter Gutmann's paper on Vista's content protection is really recommended reading, even if it's a bit polemic. And nothing beats Microsoft's own document, written by the same guy that was interviewed for Times Online.
Yikes! I'll give it about a week for someone to crack it, but in the mean time, I'd like to know if this also restricts divx encoded avi's and/or games outputted to the tv. I love watching my downloaded copies of Sponge Bob and playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure on the big screen!
DRM, and other artificial technologies designed to protect intellectual property, hinder growth, both economically and technologically.
Viva los FOSS anarchistas! Viva el revolution!
barack to the future?
"Dave Marsh, the lead program manager for video at Microsoft, said that if the PC used a digital connection to link with the monitor or television, then it would require the highest level of content protection, known as HDCP, to play the discs. If it did not have such protection, Vista would shut down the signal, he said. "
The next-gen DVD's will work with Vista, but you need to have HDCP compatible hardware if the HD DVD has the HDCP flag.
Plus, AFAIK, there are 0 HD DVD's that have this flag enabled. Rumored it will not be activated on any disc before 2010, if at all.
And we can also be sure that Some 'Potential-customers' May refuse Work With Vista as well.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
If you want a picture of the future, imagine DRM stomping on a human face -- forever.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
If it did not have such protection, Vista would shut down the signal, he said.
At least until that crack hit's the bittorrent sites that disables this "feature".
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I love watching my downloaded copies of Sponge Bob and playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure on the big screen!
Whenever there is an article critical of Microsoft, there is always some astroturfer pointing out how it is a good thing.
No Next Gen? What will I do without being able to watch Picard and crew?!?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Some 'Next-Gen' DVDs May Not Work With Vista
EMI Considers Abandoning DRM on CDs
No Ceasefire in DVD Format Battle
Today is a good day for DRM to die...
Yes can someone please fix the incorrect title?
appleguru.org
I think that just about sums it up. Why is MS in the studios' pockets anyway?
What is your point? It won't work in any other operating systems either.
If the content provider has flaged that content protection is required then you can only play it in full fidelity with a protected path.
It's not a mistake.
They can use legislation and bully tactics to reduce filesharing networks. They can't do much to stop casual copying, except through these technological measures. They're fighting against both forms of copyright infringement doing this.
I'd say that fair use gets killed in the crossfire, but when you get right down to it, they don't care about your fair use rights and probably wish that such exemptions to copyright didn't exist, anyway.
Speculation about a yet-to-be-released operating system not being compatible with yet-to-be-released video discs on yet-to-be-released hardware? Here's a news bit for you--monkeys may fly out of my ass. News at 10 on /.
Mind-boggling.
I have to admit that even though Peter Gutmann is a respected computer security expert while I know virtually nothing about Vista, I was inclined to think his analysis just had to be wrong. He had to be misunderstanding something, or positing a hypothetical situation that would never arise with real-world commercial gear, or something like that. Microsoft simply couldn't be that stupid.
Now it turns out that he's right, and that presumably-unintended but not-unforeseeable consequences of Vista's DRM scheme will prevent it from being used in the one way you'd think Microsoft would most want it to be used. It is precisely the enthusiastic with money to devote to their video hobby who are likely to be the early adopters of PCs as home video platforms.
Microsoft is coming perilously close to providing the platform that secures protected perfectly content by preventing _anyone_ from viewing it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Could someone please elaborate for me a Lunix/Unix/OSX system which we can get currently which would play an HD-DVD disc with the HDCP flag up without requiring HDCP compliant DRM in place within the OS?
It seems MS is being bashed for following the requirements being set forth by the media producers. Whereas a number of MS practices may be less than honorable, in this case from what I see they are simply holding to the requirements of the format standard.
All in all I think the media companies like Sony have been given enough DRM rope and are within a year or two of effectively fashioning themselves a noose from it, but that's just MHO on the topic.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
They're not going to not allow HDCP content to play over non-hdcp compliant outputs at full resolution. Instead, they'll downscale to something like 480p for analog and non-protected digital connections (The article here touches on this a bit, saying it's up to the content provider and specifying a limitaion based on total number of pixels in the image.
appleguru.org
Slashdotters gloat over this, while Linux can't play such discs at all.
Oh, and Mac OSX will have the same DRM support as Vista wrt such discs, so Apple fanboys don't have much leg to stand on wrt gloating either.
I have a CRT monitor with an analog VGA connection. HD FTW for me! :-D
... it is not an adequate defense for them to say they were "just following orders."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
...because TFA says that according to Marsh, "At the moment HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs certainly require such protection."
"At the moment" are his words. He could have said "in the future" but he said "at the moment."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It'll be either FreeBSD or if I have too much trouble getting that working, XP.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
If somebody would have told me, when you use DOS and its successors you will finally support the media companys, I may have used Atari...
An OS selling company is enforcing the media industry "rights", whithout even asking the customer nor the companys (Ok, I guess they talked to them)? Well, that's cool
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
The HDCP/HDMI standard is very restrictive and VISTA has always been touted as fully supporting it. This is not news, this is just disturbing fact.
Seriously, does anyone actually take the computer/DVD player output (s-video or whatever) and capture it with something else? I thought that went out along with dubbing VHS's as soon as we could get DVD drives for PCs. I realize that this is just trying to close the analog hole, but NOBODY copies DVDs this way, why do they think people will do that with high def DVDs?
The future of media cracking isn't signal capture, its firmware hacking DVD drives (if that much effort will even be required).
You may not but plenty of consumers have already proven they will..
Microsoft's representative could easily have chosen to say "In the future, by the year 2010, HD DVD and Blu-ray disks will certainly require such protection."
What he DID say according to TFA was "At the moment HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs certainly require such protection."
I don't know why he would be misinformed, or why, given the importance of this issue to Microsoft, he would be less than careful about what he said.
Most likely, current disks really don't play, because of some complexity in the interaction between Vista's DRM software and hardware that results in an illogical and unintended consequence.
If current disks will play, why on earth wouldn't he have taken great pains to say so and to stress the point.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If it did not have such protection, Vista would shut down the signal, he said.
You can't stop the signal!
Consumers won't be too pleased with having to buy all new gear to watch their newfangled DVDs, so waiting until HDCP compatibility is widespread is a good way for the movie companies to avoid the public backlash. That being said, my dad's plasma is HDCP compatible and he purchased it over a year ago. It's the computers that are being slow to catch onto the HDCP bandwagon. Neither of my LCDs is HDCP compliant, nor is my graphics card (these components aren't even a year old yet!).
Regardless, if the DRM can be circumvented you bet that I will be taking advantage of that. If I buy a movie I don't want my hardware and operating system to restrict me from viewing the content I paid for in the way that I choose.
I mean seriously, why don't they just start offering cash rewards to encourage people to break copy restrictions?
My Denon receiver (and/or the HD Tivo I have hooked up to it) does the same thing. I tried to hook up an LCD monitor to it so I could twiddle my Tivo without firing up the projector --- no dice. What's going to be interesting is seeing how virtual machine software handles virtual drives...
there seems to be an agreement between Sony and Microsoft that HDCP protection won't actually be required by Blu-Ray discs until at least 2010, maybe even 2012
So basically what this means is that we have three (or at most six) years to get Joe Sixpack pissed off about this. All of us Slashdotters love to bitch and moan about the MAFIAA, but if we got off our collective asses and started making noise about this, we could probably prevent them from ever enabling this.
As for how to do this, well there's no one right way. Defective by Design is obviously relevant, as is the EFF. I think it would be effective for people to develop a little presentation that could be given to people, so those of us who belong to e.g. civic organizations could give a little talk to people about this stuff. Writing your elected officials is probably a good idea as well.
This is slashdot, and still we aren't really sure how HDCP works. I fear the worst for Joe Blow consumer.
"Flee at once, all is discovered."
If fair use truly comes under fire, there'll be far more of an outcry than what we hear now. Hopefully, at least. I will admit that when I was in college I had a few professors who had "booklets" that were simply photocopies of recently published works that cost dozens of dollars, to cover licensing fees. But it's for educational use, and therefore should be exempt.
Reviewers would be the next party to worry, but they usually get things for free in order to pump up promotion.
Hmm, now that I mention it, their slow widdling away at fair use seems to be working surprisingly well...
Cool. So, sign me up for the content protected discs that I can play without HDCP. Go on, show me some. Or are we just... what's that word, oh yes, trolling?
My information comes from reading the AACS and HDCP licencing agreements.
Even having done that, I'm still not sure what the requirements actually are.
The current HD standards are a complete mess. For instance HD-DVD still hasn't sorted out whether it will have region-coding. This is despite HD-DVD devices already shipping.
I don't have an HD TV, nor do I really have intent to get one in the next year. Same goes for the HD players.
As long as studios treat me like a video copying pirate, why should I give them more money?
What's the deal with my TV and my DVD player needing to authenticate to each other, and the signal from one to the other being encrypted to be sent the few mere feet down the cable? I bought the disk, I bought the player and the television. Do I have to ask -permission- to watch this stuff now?
I don't buy DVDs much, if at all anymore. At most one every three or four months. I used to get one or two a week.
And then I ran out of content that I wanted to purchase.
But I guess to the studios, the fact that I stopped buying movies, doesn't mean "I don't like what pablum you are shoving at me" it means "He must be pirating movies"
No, it means that I find the shit you are cranking out displeasing, and I'm spending my money elsewhere...
I'll invest in the next generation (and that's what it is, when you look at the costs of it) of entertainment, when I find "next gen" entertainment worth my money.
I don't care about the technicalities. If I put a DVD or any successor into a drive that can play the disk I should see the pictures and hear the audio to the best the hardware can support.
Vista cannot and should not make any kind of decision on the validity of the disk beyond checking that it is correctly formatted.
All Microsoft will get is a reputation for unreliability above and beyond the one they have now.
New 1080p HD TV: $2,500
Vista OS Upgrade: $150
Card and cable for streaming HD A/V to TV: $180
Internal Blueray Drive: $900
Blueray movie: $40
Not being able to view legally purchased media on legally purchased hardware because of arbitrary content restrictions: $3770 apparently.
All prices approximate but realistic. Thanks Hollywood and Microsoft, obviously the consumer is king!
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
This is one of a long list of reasons that I won't be upgrading to Vista or HD-DVD/BluRay in the forseeable future. The sad thing for all of the companies involved is that I usually am an early adopter of technology.
I was one of the first people I knew to own a Tivo, DVD-player and an HD set (okay, I didn't own the set but I pressured my dad into buying one and he was really happy with it). I bought a copy of XP pretty much as soon as it was available. Last count, I owned nearly 500 DVDs.
And that's about as far as my relationship with these companies go. I--a legitimate, paying customer--am unwilling to be inconvenienced one single second, or pay a single extra dollar, to be treated like a criminal. I simply won't do it. So I'll continue buying DVDs until they stop manufacturing them, hopefully by which point this whole fiasco will have blown over.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
It's not like we haven't known this since day one, and it's not like you can go and buy PCs with other operating systems that don't have these restrictions. How much does anybody want to bet that when Apple supports a BD drive that they won't have to support HDCP/HDMI restrictions just like everybody else.
The article was not about analog gear, it was about new high-end gear with digital outputs. And you (and Marsh) are saying that current disks will not play on these systems now, not that starting in 2010 they won't play.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Does someone have a gun to Bill Gates' head demanding that he support this format that hurts the consumer? Nope. Microsoft saw what the consumer wants and what the content provider wants and went with the content provider.
Blar.
Wrong: Some 'Next-Gen' DVDs May Not Work With Vista Right: Some PCs May Not Play 'Next-Gen' DVDs The problem is on the hardware side, you need an HDCP capable video card and monitor, and this has been known for a long time.
Well, I think it's a mistake because it does not fit what people want, but they're selling it to us as if it were so.
I haven't bought some discs because they were copy-protected as if it were a feature and if you took the time to read the indications it could harm even your hardware (includen the cd player of your car).
So, why should I pay for? For a promise of damaged equipment? Sorry, but no. The actual business model is broken due to internet and all the new technologies, companies should seek for a new business model, threatening clients is not the solution.
why wouldn't you just buy Windows XP?
Because you coundn't?
Most people do not actually "buy" their OS as such. They buy a computer, with whatever OS is preloaded by the OEMs.
Even for those competent and aware enough to go and buy a retail version of XP to replace the pre-loaded Vista would have to spend a lot of money, easily 1/2 the cost of their new computer ($199 for XP Home at Walmart, or a single-install version of XP Home for $119). This is on top of whatever they would pay for pre-installed Vista. Plus they would probably lose the call-in support for tinkering with the OS. Plus many drivers would no longer work or would be a pain to find. Plus most new games/applications/disks would only work on Vista.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Try downloading any video content that ends in a .WMV extension from any P2P network.
.WMV files won't play. When you try to play them, a window pops up and tells you you need to go download some kind of permission file from some unknown website before it will play. Of course, I'm not going to do that.
.WMV extensions from my video searches on P2P networks. They have DRMed themselves right out of my existance. I now assume that anything with a .WMV extension won't play.
You will find that 99% of
So as a result, I now screen out all
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I hate Micro$oft stuff never gets old around here. How many people here even own HD-DVD or Blu-ray (I'm sorry) content anyway?
I don't have an HD TV, nor do I really have intent to get one in the next year. Same goes for the HD players.
I have a monitor, Windows XP and PirateBay bookmarked. There is no service on the market that can get me content of better quality or more conveniently or with better standards compliance.
As long as studios treat me like a video copying pirate, why should I give them more money?
I would like to give them money, but they have already chosen how to treat me.
Also, people are understandably confusing two different DRM components: HDCP and ICT. ICT (Image Constraint Token) is the DRM that downgrades the video if played over analog connections. ICT hasn't been implemented yet and most studios have agreed not to implement it until around 2010 at the earliest.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
By 'CPU', do you mean the computer itself, or the Central Processing Unit (the chip in the motherboard) was missing?
Yeah, but if "Mah movie don' work.", I'm going to demand a refund. If 1,001 rednecks go into WorstBuy saying "Mah movie don' work.", they will be very PO'd about having to return all that money, and just might quit carrying the offensive DVDs.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
First, it is not new at all. If all consumer hardware is supposed to have this restriction, then why should PC be any different?
Second, we have already seen this. Modern DVD playing applications for PC detect video output chips (not for the PC monitor, just the TV-Out), and if the DVD is marked copy-protected, then they try to enable macrovision-style protection, which passes OK on TV (which are designed to deal with bad signal), but usually screws up if you try to record it on a VCR. If the output chip doesn't support macrovision, then the output is shut off. That's what we have for 8 years already. And there was no such wave of "boo" and objection, because that apparently happened totally without Microsoft, with film industry and hardware vendors making a deal.
I reckon he meant the system unit. Ironic, how he makes such a dumb mistake while insulting someone else's lack of computer knowledge.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
This is some of the best stuff to happen in a long time. There aren't too many examples where Microsoft has so blatantly made life purposefully difficult for "their customers". I'm proud to *not* be one of "their customers". They keep this up and they won't have any "customers" (or victims). I don't advocate breaking the law and distributing content illegally, but I do advocate putting the consumer first and this is something that Microsoft has consistently *not* done. And there's no end in sight to putting the consumer last. To Microsoft, the "customer" is something to "deal with", a nuisance, not the entity they want to provide good services to and satisfy. I like this policy. It will badly damage the record industry, the movie industry and Microsoft. This has been repeatedly shown in past schemes and will continue to be shown in this one.
Fresh horses and more whiskey for my men.
I have never seen an LCD monitor that had only a DVI input, they always have VGA too. Same with video cards, I've never seen one without VGA. So, if you end up wanting to play HD, won't every user have VGA as a choice to fall back to?
They don't need to know why as long as they return the stuff. The average consumer will just stick to prior generation technology to avoid the hassle, because he will have heard through the grapevine many stories like this one, that technology X doesn't work yet because it's still too copy protected and they have to fix it, or one of their friends told them that if you get player Y or discs in format Z to stick to Windows XP because they won't work on Vista.
That's what a consumer revolution looks like. It isn't important that the consumers even be aware of it; the people who have to get the message are the sellers of this crap.
My guess is that stories like this one are poison. Together with the format war (which has everyone I talk to asking, "Which format has less DRM?") stories like this one will kill the high density DVD market for a few years. These technologies will flop just like the laser disc did, the industry press will conclude that people just aren't interested in higher density data storage, and the market will stagnate for a few years until somebody comes along who doesn't have their head up their ass and who makes some sort of general purpose data storage device specifically designed for unprotected content. There is a market for such stuff- not everyone is going to be using it for entertainment. If Vista fails to load drivers for such a device because they haven't been cryptographically signed with the blessing of their new media overlords (whom they all welcomed) then too bad for Vista.
Within a month... nay, a week, after the first mainstream HDCP-requiring discs hit the market, the protection will have been cracked. If I am holding a disc with a movie on it, nothing will ever be able to stop me from watching that movie more than temporarily.
People you hang around with want it. The vast majority simply don't care one way or the other. They may think it would be nice to make a dub like you used to be able to do with VHS (though Macrovision was fairly effective in stopping this, for most people) but these are cases where the law is a lot less fuzzy--even if it's not for commercial gain, copying an entire work is rarely considered fair use.
I could bitch all day about how Microsoft doesn't "give me what I want" (which is a free OS). That doesn't mean that selling Vista is a mistake.
Most people don't care about copy protection that isn't intrusive. DVD copy protection is not intrusive to 99% of the market. HD-DVD/Bluray copy protection may be intrusive to more people (the cross section of people who can't watch it in full HD and people who will even notice[1]), but ultimately, it's still probably not going to be enough to matter. From a business perspective, it is simply not a mistake. Removing the copy protection would not generate them significantly more revenue.
(Now all of you who say, "I'd buy it if it had no copy protection!" can chime in as if you matter--hell, I'd buy either standard if they had no copy protection--but that demographic is not nearly as high as you think it is, and frankly, once the devices drop down to the $50 range like DVD did, you'll see a lot of people who originally took the moral high-ground buying them because they're cheap enough that it barely hurts your wallet.)
First off, I never worked a help desk. I did on site service. To put me through college with an engineering degree, I might add. Second, calling the actual computer the CPU is not incorrect, it's merely old school.
Now get off my lawn.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You'll get an inadvertent consumer revolution in the form of a wave of returned merchandise from your mouth breathers at Best Buy. They'll leave the store perhaps only barely conscious of the effect they just had on the whole DRM issue by returning the DRM-managed paperweights they bought- paperweights that had pretended to be computers and high end electronics in the store.
Gods, I hope so. But I'm just too old and cynical to think it'll play out that way. Most likely (IMHO at least), you'll have salesweasels saying, "Oh, but your new movie would work if you bought the compatible monitor! Just look at that picture - it really is worth it."
A lot of this whole DRM war isn't just about controlling content. It's about getting the consumer base to buy yet another round of hardware to do the same damn thing their current hardware already does.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I say you make a TV commercial. Put it up on YouTube, google video, and any other available spot. Put links on some MySpace pages. You can probably get enough attention, atleast in the US, to get a few news channel consumer reports specials.
I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
Analog outputs get artificially reduced quality.
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
I mean not a lot of people use their PC as a DVD player. And before someone responds pointing out the benefits - Yes, I know you do, but you represent a minority. Most people are going to buy a nice easy to use Hi def DVD player that plugs into their big screen HDTV and has a nice remote control.
The whole media PC idea is just a wet dream from Microsoft marketting types.
Because eventually XP won't run your new software, even though it's basically the same OS.
I'm still running 2000 and now I'm starting to discover apps (Photoshop CS3 for example) that make XP-only system calls for no apparent reason which I suspect is merely a ploy to insist that I and the many companies still running 2000 start to migrate up to XP or Vista.
Random and weird software I've written.
Ever noticed that their stock exchange symbol MSFT sounds like "misfit" when pronounced?
Do not trust this signature.
READ THE GODDAMN SPECIFICATION BEFORE YOU SPOUT OUT BOLLOCKS!
Link 2.4.1.1 DVI (Digital) DVI is a high-speed, high-quality, digital pixel interface, developed by the PC industry. It is used in place of analog VGA to connect to PC monitors. It can provide very high resolutions by paralleling separate channels. Intel's HDCP protection is available for DVI, but is not always implemented by hardware manufacturers. HDCP is approved by the content industry, so DVI with HDCP is a great output solution for protected content. In contrast, DVI without HDCP is definitely not liked by content owners, because it provides a pristine digital interface that can be captured cleanly. When playing premium content such as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD, PVP-OPM will be required to turn off or constrict the quality of unprotected DVI. As a result, a regular DVI monitor will either get slightly fuzzy or go black, with a polite message explaining that it doesn't meet security requirements. So, to correct:
- HD will output flawlessly on any output when HDCP is not requested by the content producer
- If HDCP is requested, the content can either be degraded to standard definition or blocked completely
- It will be degraded, not blocked. Content providers are greedy but not stupid
That times article is retarded, and makes it sound as though you can't watch HD on a digital monitor at all but "huuuuuuuurrrr it'll be just fine on analog." To reiterate, content providers might be greedy but they're not stupid. Given the option of degrading or blocking, they will go for degrading so that you can be enticed to think how much better it would be in HD if you go buy their fancy kit, and also to reduce all the complaints of "my disc is broken!"Seriously, seeing as half the people responding above don't know what they're talking about,how is the average consumer supposed to know that their disc isn't playing because they need a better TV?
The amount of FUD surrounding this is really pissing me off, especially when supposedly reputable sources like the times end up shitting out absolute nonsense.
Second, calling the actual computer the CPU is not incorrect, it's merely old school.
It's not "old-school". The box is not, and never has been, a CPU. Maybe you meant "It's merely home-school"?
This is a good idea, but I don't think this is the most effective way of doing things. Not everybody is on the Internet, and only a small fraction of those are really what we think of as "Internet people" and get into Youtube, Myspace, etc. To really get something into the public's consciousness, you have to aim at everyone and do it on multiple levels. That said, the web scene is a good place to try and recruit tech-savvy people.
So for you it's ok to pay a lot of money to buy a product you can't fully use while people that get the same product illegally enjoy them in its full glory. Protection schemes and DRM only affects the people that acquire the media legally, it's completely insane. I fear Vista is so much DRM focused so they have forgotten that it's actually an OS and not a draconian right management system. I think also that MS would sell a lot more of copies of Windows XP if it didn's costed above 300. The fact is that even if you pay the big money the media companies don't offer replacement media if yours get broken or stolen so far I know, and they also charge you every time they como with a new format though you are getting the same thing. Most protection schemes are only ways to force people pay more for the same. Even if the cost of the base materials lowers, media price only gets up. Of course big companies make big money and they want to keep it coming. As simple as that. And think about this: Author and Companies have their rights, but what rights does the user have? Is there something like URM (Users Rights Management)? Nop there's only We-the-big-ones-rights-management.
No offense Mr. Stretchy, but I think you pretty much missed it here.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I'll bet you're a lot of fun at parties.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Last I checked you can't get refunds on opened media. Especially not when it doesn't work because your hardware isn't good enough (in this case, lacking HDCP) because that's your fault.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
A sample of the whole population would produce people who don't even own a DVD player. I think it depends what group you are talking about. My wife rarely watches content on her Mac, but I often watch movies or ITMS content on my PC. I know quite a few college students who use their computers in dorm rooms for watching content.
I wouldn't discredit the media center pc in the future but it will be more like Apple TV. You may not want one, but I bet it will sell well.
More people drive chevy vehicles than BMWs. That doesn't mean BMW isn't important to someone. Somehow BMW continues to sell cars despite Chevy selling so many cars. More doesn't mean better or important... just as Windows having 90% market share is an indicator of quality or value.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
This is why I mentioned a Television Commercial and also local news consumer reports. Getting air time on a few local news channels would start a word of mouth campaign through the general public.
I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
Ahh, I can picture the /. headline now followed up with a bunch of whining about how Microsoft is refusing to cooperate with the industry to provide HD content.
It's really:
Ready!
Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
Aim!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Vista is basically the same as XP, except it has more DRM, why wouldn't you just buy Windows XP?
Because the default state for DRM content is "doesn't play at all" instead of "plays always". Means with DRM you get the state dictated by the DRM, without DRM you get nothing. That's kinda like uninstalling PGP and expecting all emails to come in plain text because of that.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Sorry, I gotta back up Mr Old-School. While it may not be the correct term I've seen CPU used to describe "the box" for at least 10+ years, mostly on network diagrams. So we are stuck with it in some form, just like the intertubes ...
So, the choices available to early-adopter, influential, enthusiasts who want to trick out their home theatre with the latest and spiffiest gear, including a PC with Vista, are:
--Use an analog connection and get screwed in 2010 when discs with ICT come out, or
--Use a digital connection, and get screwed now.
Sounds like a winning formula to me.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Use analog cable TV and DVDs for video. Good enough yesterday, good enough tomorrow. Or find alternative ways to provide yourselves with PC entertainment ;)
If I had been "kickin' it" on a playground in the 90's I'd have been quickly arrested for stalking.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Well, apparently Microsoft doesn't know how it works, either...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
The average consumer will just stick to prior generation technology to avoid the hassle...
Then the average consumer will watch their electrolytic capacitors explode, and the only thing left to replace it with is a shiny, new, DRM encumbered, sealed in epoxy "media center" that will not allow uploads. Basically a tv with a modem instead of an antenna. Which is probably what they really want anyway.
What?
This is not : news, unexpected, or Microsofts fault.
..
It has been known for *LONG* time that HDDVD/BR could either not play, or downsample the resolution based on lack of HDCP.
This is not Microsofts fault in any way. If MS wants Vista to be able to licensed play either of these formats, they are required to follow the licensing rules no?
The settings for this are individual to each title, and (partially due to lack of console support for hdmi & hdcp) expected to mostly be unused. AFAIK.
Not that I think DRM or any of this bullshit is good, I hate it. But it's erroneous to blame this on MS or Vista.
Oooh, good point. But wait. When a cracked CODEC is released this won't be a problem on Vista either. D'Oh for you.
I've been in the industry for over 20 years. The box used to be called the CPU. It took alot of time for those of us in the industry to change the terminology. I like the term "the box" more than CPU but that's what the box used to be called.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
More people will start soldering on replacement capacitors than recommending upgrades to someone insistent on avoiding the DRM attacks to their content and privacy.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I haven't been "kickin' it" on a playground since the 70's. In 1990 I was on my third computer, an 8086 Amstraad. A CPU was a chip then, like it is now, just a whole lot less capable. Lots of people in the 90's (as well as now) called it a "hard drive" also - but it isn't, wasn't, and won't be for the foreseeable future. People by the millions can call the box "lederhosen" or "marital aid" if they like, but all being wrong in the same way won't make them right.
Ok, I can't swear that it couldn't be a marital aid, but the rest stands.
http://blogs.msdn.com/audiofool/archive/2007/01/0
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Luckily these guys are still around. I hope they make a big comeback. Homemade chips...hmmmm. Now I got the munchies.
What?
Slashdot: Pedantry for Nerds. Mostly Blather.
Seriously: if people can't return it, they will take it on the chin and then _never buy another one ever again_
Either way, the GPs point is valid.
Yeah, in elementary school they taught us that the box was called the CPU. All of the movies and worksheets sent to us by one of the PC giants of the time had it labeled thusly...
i would just want for all the drm stuff to explode on their faces such that consumers will not buy them and demand that drm be removed.
i would welcome the day when such content are free again.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
A little history...
The DVD spec was finalised in September 1995. The first players appeared (in Japan) in November 1996. The first players appeared in the US in March 1997. DVD players did not become widespread in the US until Christmas 1998 / early 1999.
DVD-CSS was cracked sometime in September 1999, and DeCSS was released into the wild on October 6, 1999. That's 4 years after the spec was finalised, 3 years after players first became available, 2 1/2 years after players became available in the US, and nearly 1 year after they became commonplace.
HDCP, AACS, and the whole trusted path thing is considerably more complicated and considerably more secure than CSS ever was.
I'll let everybody else make their own conclusions from that, and lay their own bets as to when it might be cracked...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?